The countless number of jokes about
lawyers reveals a fear and animosity toward members of this profession, which,
to the average citizen, appears powerful and mysterious. Only in fiction—and in
the self-serving autobiographies that read like fiction—does
the lawyer emerge as the admirable figure, the hero. Think of Perry Mason; the
flawed protagonists of Scott Turow novels; the cardboard characters of John
Grisham’s; and, from To Kill a
Mockingbird, the most stellar lawyer-as-hero: Atticus Finch.

Their heroic real-life counterparts
are less well known, though not entirely rare. Legal Aid societies, for
instance, could not exist without them. The most recognizable lawyers in America,
though, make money and win fame by chitchatting comfortably on cable
television.

William Kunstler was an entirely
different kind of lawyer. This book, a slim collection of courtroom and public
speeches, some taken from FBI files, shows Kunstler as the rare individual who,
with a passion for justice, could not help but follow his conscience. Kunstler
is kin to notables like Stokely Carmichael, Dave Dellinger, the Berrigans, and
Leonard Peltier (clients all), who were honest and principled men of integrity,
persons who, whether one agreed with them or not, commanded appreciation and
admiration. With all of them, social beliefs guided personal action, regardless
of difficulty or consequences. These are heroic qualities.

America’s greatest nonconformist,
Henry David Thoreau, wrote: “I think that we should be men first, and subjects
afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as
for the right…Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their
respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.”
Kunstler may never have read these words, but his speeches attest that he lived
by them.

“The law,” Kunstler said in 1994,
“is nothing more than a method of control created by a socioeconomic system
determined, at all costs, to perpetuate itself, by all and any means necessary,
for as long as possible.” Kunstler abandoned the liberal daydream in the impartial
and fair administration of justice. “Those two words, legality and justice, are
miles apart,” he said.

Kunstler’s career as a public
figure and movement lawyer began with civil rights work in the 1960s, but it
was the Chicago Seven trial that shaped him into a political radical and
compelled him to adopt the views he retained for the remainder of his life. Chicago
Seven defendant Abbie Hoffman in his autobiography, Soon to Be A Major Motion Picture, wrote: “Of course Kunstler was the
central figure in the court. He was fearless and quick on his feet. His passion
knew no limits and he roared with laughter or wept with tears as a legal system
he really believed in crumpled in chaos around him…How the events registered on
him and how he responded made up one of the trial’s greatest dramas.”

Kunstler himself referred to the
Chicago Seven trial as his “personal Rubicon.” The reference itself says a
great deal about Kunstler. The phrase implies not only an irreversible decision
but also a conscious decision and action taken from deliberate intent. Kunstler
was about fifty years old when he decided “that the only life worth living is
one which is devoted to the welfare of others.” At fifty, when most people are
fixed and settled in their beliefs, an age when political radicals are more apt
to tire out and succumb to a softer, easier existence, Kunstler instead chose a
more difficult personal and political transformation that guided his steps for
the remainder of his life. No wonder, then, in speech after speech, Kunstler
stressed the importance of individual conscience and the necessity to speak up
and stand up for social justice. In a message to a YaleUniversity
reunion, he wrote: “We are the elitist cogs of a civilization which measures
human worth almost exclusively in dollars and cents, and the fact that it has rewarded
many of us handsomely…only underscores our real value to it.”

This is not a fully realized
Marxist theory of alienation within capitalist society; it is more of a moral
renunciation of false values and a cry to live a better life in pursuit of real
values. In this quest, Thoreau went to the woods; Kunstler went to the
courtroom. There, as he says modestly, “…this effort has taken the form of
engaging in perpetual struggle on rigidly restricted terrains for some aspect
of relative freedom for others as well as for myself.”

Parenthetically, it is telling that
Kunstler accepts a particular misreading of Herman Melville’s great novel, Moby-Dick. After the death of Captain
Ahab and the destruction of his ship, the Pequod,
Ishmael, the narrator, alone survives to tell the tale. Kunstler incorrectly
cites Ishmael, as the hero who returns to the sea to continue a fight against
evil. Nothing in the novel suggests that Ishmael goes back to whaling. The idea
of returning to the good fight, despite terrible setbacks, is Kunster’s own. If
this example shows that he was a weak literary critic, it also shows something
better: He was a strong man whose personal integrity enabled him to be an
effective lawyer.

At the conclusion of the Chicago
Seven trial, Judge Julius Hoffman remarked to defendant Tom Hayden, “Fellows as
smart as you could do awfully well under this system.” His judgment applied
equally to Kunstler who also could have done “awfully well,” in the judge’s
sense of material wealth, comfort, and privilege. But Kunstler turned his back
on “success” within “this system” and instead followed another path.

Someday a full biography of William
Kunstler will be written, and no doubt that book will expose his personal
weaknesses and lapses. A personality as large as Kunstler’s must surely have
had flaws to match. Still, his virtues—courage, integrity, commitment, and
daring—will remain undiminished and will continue to inspire.

Michael Ratner, in a useful Introduction
that shows the contemporary relevance of Kunstler’s ideas, wrote, “This book is
a breath of fresh air. Reading Bill’s speeches genuinely awed me. They made me
optimistic about the fight to regain our lost liberty. His speeches are as
prescient today as they were when he gave them. His words place our struggle
for a more just world in a historical context of struggle, and should make us
all understand the obligation to continue fighting.”

In the United
States and Canada, Ocean Press books are
available through Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, on-line at: www.cbsd.com.